Returning Special Guest: Monika Wiesak, Author of "Michael Jackson: The Man, the Music, the Controversy"

🎉 Returning special guest! It was my pleasure to sit down again with Monika Wiesak regarding her book Michael Jackson: The Man, the Music, the Controversy. So many things I never knew - so many rumors I accepted as possibly or even probably true. Then I read this book and 🤯. As a Gen Xer, his music looms large in my childhood and early adolescence. Then the news broke that he was a total creep and someone to be loathed. Is this true? Or is there much more to the story?

Topics:

➡️ Music evokes memories for everyone. Music is also a highly powerful art form.
➡️ Where did the accusations about Michael come from? Why did the media hit him so hard?
➡️ What's the truth around MJ's accusers?
➡️ As with JFK: murder and slander are the ultimate forms of censorship.
➡️ What made Michael so dangerous to the establishment?


Links:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/15157547

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Jackson-Man-Music-Controversy/dp/B0CV5BC4GK

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Sara: Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. Tonight I have a special episode with a very special returning guest. We must have done something right. It's always wonderful when somebody feels like they had a good time. They were treated well, and they were willing to invite us back into their space. I'm back tonight with Monika. We sack She is the author of America's Last President, What the World Lost When it Lost John F Kennedy. We spoke about that book in the last episode when she visited with me. If you missed that, I'll drop a link to it in the write up for this episode. Please go back and give that a listen. If you haven't already tonight, we're here to talk about another book that she's authored. America's Last President was absolutely incredible, and it inspired me in so many ways. So I was eager to check out Michael Jackson, The Man, the Music, the Controversy, and it illuminated a number of points that I never knew. So I wanted to have Monika on to tell us about Michael Jackson, the Man, the Music, the Controversy. First things first, welcome back. I'm so glad you came back. 

Monika: Thank you for having me back. I'm excited to chat about this topic. 

S: I want to begin with a sense of memory, and I was thinking about Cole Porter's classic song “Begin the Begine,” which is particularly about how music is so evocative for a person's memory, whether it's a first kiss, a first dance, you can hear a song and just instantly be transported back to a particular place and time. And you touched on this in the preface, when you remember the 1993 Super Bowl halftime show now for Gen X and the elder millennials, Michael Jackson is large in the soundtrack of our childhood, our teen years, our early adulthood. So I want to open up with inviting you to reflect on some memories that you have of Michael Jackson and his music. 

M: Yeah. So he had a huge impact on me. His music had a massive impact on me. So I remember the first song I remember consciously hearing is man in the mirror. And I remember I was so moved by the empathy in his voice. I couldn't even make out all the lyrics, but I could feel the empathy and the compassion in his voice, and for me as a young child, that was just so inspiring, and it made me want to be a good person, and made me want to care about the people that are typically forgotten by society, and I still remember, like sitting in the grass with my little white radio listening to that song, and so it was just so influential on me. And actually, in that video, he had images of JFK. So I think that may have been one of my first introductions to JFK as well. Interestingly, you know, and then he came out with other beautiful songs like heal the world. And I remember that Super Bowl performance, which I wrote about in my preface. And I just remember how unifying it was, you know, he had people from like, every culture and every religion and every nationality, you know, be a part of that performance. And he was, you know, his message was really that we're all one, and, you know, we should promote peace and unity and kindness. And so as a young child, those were very impactful images for me from his songs, you know. And then as I got older, and also as he got older, he started coming out more, you know, songs like they don't care about us, and money where, you know, it's kind of funny, he went from heal the world to they don't care about us, you know, like, so it's just where he was, not just, you know, singing about this utopia, but also saying, you know, things are not the way they should be. And so a lot of that just had a lot of impact on me growing up. And I don't think you see that from artists today, like you did from Michael to really speak out on a lot of various issues. 

S: I agree, yes, and it's, it's interesting that you mentioned man in the mirror. I'm just going to tell one quick memory, because I have so many. We could be here all night if I was going all the way through from like when thriller first hit on MTV. And I was like, holy smokes. We'd never seen anything like that. It was such as wicked cool. But this is a short memory from the aughts. I had won tickets and backstage passes to a Dierks Bentley concert. My friend Ericka, huge country music fan, and so she was going to go with me. And we had to road trip from Oklahoma to Texas to go to the show, and we were in the in this rental car. It was a comedy of errors this whole trip. But one of the things. Things that I remember is that a Texas radio station played this, like Extended Cut gospel music breakdown of man in the mirror, and it went on for like 10 - 15 minutes. We listened to the whole thing. We sang every word, every noise, every show. We were on it. We were 100% on it. We were in the cut like a bandage. We were in that song having church going down the highway. So here we are. We're going to a completely different artists concert in a completely different genre of music, but we're listening to Michael Jackson in this extended cut gospel type song about the man in the mirror and making a change. And it was, it was like a spiritual, a transcendent, spiritual experience going down in this rust bucket of a rental car down the highway in Texas. And I feel like that's one of the things that great music can do, is it can. It can not only evoke that sense of memory, like I'm getting nostalgic about all the weird things that happened to us on that trip, but it can also unite people. You can have people that are of completely different mentalities, different races, different national origins, different religions, but a great song can really bring people together. 

M: Oh, absolutely. And I think Michael would really appreciate the comment you made about the spirituality of it, because I think he really did want his music to be very spiritual. And I think he was a very spiritual person, and I think that did come through in his music. So I think he would have greatly appreciated what you just said there. 

S: We were feeling it. We were in the Holy Spirit going down the road. And I noticed too in the book that you talked about how Michael, he seems to be this sensitive person, and he grows up exposed to fame at a young age, and he feels like his awkward adolescence is on display for the world. I remember what I felt like as an adolescent with frizzy hair and acne. I wouldn't have wanted everybody on God's green earth to see me. What kind of impact do you think that all of that fame and then growing up on camera, so to speak? What kind of impact do you think that had on him? 

M: I think it definitely scarred him, you know, because he was this, like, cute little kid, and everybody thought he was, you know, really adorable. And then when he became a teenager, you know, he had a lot of acne. He was very awkward, and people didn't recognize him. So people would yell, there's Michael, there's Michael. And someone else would say, No, that's not Michael. And so I think that really psychologically impacted him. And he stated that that impacted him. And so I think it did make him self conscious about his appearance, about, you know, appearing in public, it made him shy. So it's absolutely, I think, had a huge impact on him. And it's, it's got to be extremely difficult to grow up in the spotlight like that, having everybody judge your every move, your every appearance, everything you do, and and going through those awkward teenage years that can't possibly be easy. 

S: No, no. And then for him, it continues in adulthood. So this public display rambles on and it seems to me that dealing with health, health issues is difficult enough in private, but then it's made even worse if you have to deal with those things in a hugely public way, and then to have people passing judgments about all of it. 

M: Yeah, it was difficult. So he got burned in 1984 in a commercial. And vitiligo, the burns are a leading cause of vitiligo, and so I don't, I can't say definitively that the Burns is what led to his vitiligo, but that's really when he started to lose pigmentation in his skin. So I believe the burns were probably the primary cause, or at least they were sent maybe a nascent state, a state of vitiligo and lupus is also a leading cause of vitiligo, which he had. So he had both the burns and the lupus, and then, of course, the vitiligo. And so it was really embarrassing for him, because he was really self conscious, and he used a lot of makeup to cover that vitiligo. So as that vitiligo spread and spread, because it spread over time, he went to lighter and lighter makeup. And that's why you see him. You know, over time, he appears lighter and lighter gradually, and that that's because of the makeup he's using to try to even out his skin, because he didn't want to go in public with all this blotched skin. Although you can find various photos on the internet of him now and where he's not wearing makeup and you can see the blotches on his skin, but typically, he did use heavy makeup to cover that up. And I think it was really traumatic for someone who was already self conscious to start with, yeah, and I think another thing that was made worse, probably, and made him feel awful. 

S: I remember like we're in the prime time of my Gen X years now, I remember the 80s and 90s very well, and people would make fun of him, and they would make really tacky comments accusing him of wanting to change his own race, like he didn't want to be a man of color anymore, and that's why he was wearing lighter colored makeup. And that had to be horrible for him to hear such things? 

M: Oh, absolutely, you know, because he was very proud of his race, he was very proud of his heritage, and he didn't really know how to deal with the vitiligo, and he didn't want to be out there talking about his medical issues. And so it was, the whole experience was just very traumatic for him, you know. And he when he was with a doctor friend of his, and he was going through a medical book, you know, he pointed out to a page of an African child with vitiligo, and he said, no one can really understand the pain that that child is going through. 

S: In Chapter Two, you used a quote from his interview with Oprah in 1993 where he says, quote, I'm a great fan of art. I love Michelangelo. If I had a chance to talk to him or read about him, I would want to know about what inspired him to become who he is, the anatomy of his craftsmanship, not about who he went out with last night or why he decided to sit out in the sun, so long, that's what's important to me. End quote that struck a tremendous chord with me. I stopped and highlighted it right there and then in the book, because of what we see, not only with Michael himself, but with what I would label nasty sex rumors in general, right? So JFK gets lambasted for being too sexually active, supposedly, while somebody like Dag Hammarskjöld is smeared for not being sexual enough. And I'm like, really? So what do you think propels these smear campaigns? 

M: Yeah, I think usually when someone's being smeared. Now, obviously some of it is just profit and like tabloidiness and gossip and but I think also people like Michael and JFK and Hammarskjöld are also, I think, targeted. So if the media doesn't like you, or they don't like the influence you have on people, or they don't like the messages you spread, then one way to weaken the power of the message you're spreading is to trash you. And I think using sex and things like that is one of the easiest ways to trash people. And so I think that's where a lot of that comes from. I think assuming that it's just purely profit driven, which a lot of people do to me, is overly simplistic. I think there's more to it than that, and I think that's obvious because you see like Michael positive Michael Jackson stuff. Stuff sells great better than negative Michael Jackson stuff. So I don't think it's as simple as that. I think it's part of it. But I think usually the people that are targeted are typically people that not always, but typically people that the media doesn't care for or wants to weaken, you know, the message that they're trying to spread? 

S: Yeah, I think that's very well said, and I agree with you, because it's reductive, and I think it becomes a really simple answer if we say, well, it's all about money, of course, of course, Sarah, it's all about money. It's the almighty dollar. I remember in our last episode, you were talking about murder, of course, as the ultimate way to censor somebody. But also slander is another form of censorship. And that's something I think that we see happening to Michael Jackson. Certainly. We saw it happening to JFK, we see it happening to Dag Hammarskjöld. You're talking about three disparate people from completely different walks of life who are all ultimately slandered in the media, and then you can argue murdered. I mean, in Michael Jackson's case, maybe not necessarily in an assassination, but certainly I think that the medical system dropped the ball the things that he went through to try to put on his tours, and what the production company expected of him there at the end in reading your book, I was like, my God, what a rigorous and outrageous schedule they were trying to put him on. 

M: Yeah, and I think I heard someone say, you know, he was bullied to death. And so I think in a lot of ways, he was, if not directly murdered, at least indirectly murdered, you know, because if he hadn't been so bullied, if he hadn't been so slandered, he probably wouldn't have been so desperate to perform those concerts and to repair his image. You know, he would have been in a much better state in his life, with a lot less stress. So I think all the media bullying, the decades of media bullying, absolutely played a role in his death. 

S: Yeah, I wonder how some of these people sleep at night with the amount of gossip and bullying that they put on these other people and Okay, speaking of which, there's a segue. I never heard the stories behind the sword, the story, so to speak, regarding Jackson's molestation accusers, the tape recording, for example, that you talk about, of Evan Chandler saying that it will be a massacre if he doesn't get what he wants, and he's going to destroy Michael. Wow. Just wow. I would just love if you would walk us through this Evan Chandler slash Jordan Chandler saga. 

M: Yeah. So the molestation allegations, the first set of allegations that came out was in 1993 in the middle of 1993 and Michael had met Jordan Chandler and his mother, June and his sister Lily, when his car broke down near a company called renarac, which is like a car rental business. And June's new husband, David Schwartz, owned rent a wreck. And he knew JORDY was a big fan of Michael, so he called June and Lily and Jordy down to rent a wreck to meet him, and Michael was just super grateful to them for helping him out. And so they agreed to exchange phone numbers, and they ended up coming up to Neverland to visit with Michael. And they became good friends. They went up, you know, multiple times and whatnot, and Evan, who was June's ex husband and jordy's father, who was a really absent father, like he owed June tons of child support. He wasn't spending any time with Jordy, but as soon as he found out they were friends with Michael, he got really jealous, and he wanted to be in on it. He wanted to be involved in it. He wanted to, you know, get close to Michael. And Michael did spend a little bit of time with him, but Michael wasn't really feeling Evan, and so Evan started to get really jealous of sort of that relationship, and he started to behave really erratically because Michael was ignoring him. So David Schwartz, who was separated from June by this point, but he decided to tape a phone call with Evan Chandler, and in that phone call. It's extremely revealing. That's the phone call you quoted, where Evan almost comes off as a jealous boyfriend. He's like, why isn't Michael calling me? I was nice to him. Why doesn't you know? Why is he ignoring me all this? And he sort of implies that he's going to go after Michael. He doesn't explicitly state he's going to accuse him of molesting his son, but he sort of implies it in the phone call. And he says, Everything's going according to a certain plan that isn't just mine. There's other people involved. You know, all I have to do is pull the trigger, and this man will not sell another record. He's going to be completely destroyed. June is never going to see her son again. She's going to be completely destroyed. And then he said, I'm blaming all three of them, Jordy, June and Michael, for basically what Evan views as like ignoring him, even though he was completely ignoring Jordi before Michael came into the picture. And so David Schwartz then shares this tape with June, and they take it to Michael's private investigator, Anthony Pellicano. And Pellicano knew right away this was an extortion attempt, and so a few days after that, Evan asked for temporary a one week visitation with Jordi, which June obliged, but then Evan wouldn't give Jordi back to her, and he went to a psychologist with a hypothetical scenario, saying, if a child is spending time with a man, Is it possible that that man is abusing that child? And then how do I report child abuse without liability to the parent? In other words, you know, how do I ensure if I'm reporting something that's not true, that I don't get in trouble? And this psychologist said, Well, you know, if the child reports it to a psychologist, and then the psychologist is obligated to report it to Department of Children and Family Services. And so Evan wasn't giving Geordi back to June, so June's getting really frustrated, so she goes to court to try to get Jordi back. And during this whole time, so this is about a 30 day period, they're actually trying to negotiate with Michael to get a movie script deal, because Michael got $40 million from Sony to start a film production company, and Evan actually had written a screenplay. So he kind of viewed himself as like someone who wanted to get into Hollywood and write screenplays, and so he wanted half that Sony money that Michael had gotten to basically write screenplays, and he's basically threatening, you know, if you don't give me a screenplay deal, I'm gonna accuse you of molesting my son. And so the Anthony Pellicano was sort of negotiating with with Rothman, who was Chandler's lawyer. Now it wasn't a real negotiation. They were just trying to make a record of the extortion attempt. Pellicano went to him and said, Okay, we'll give you three scripts, a three script deal for only $1 million not the 20 million you're asking for. And Rothman comes back and says, Though that's too low. So Pellicano goes back and says, Okay, it's only one screenplay for 350 grand. So Rothman knew at that point Pellicano was. Just pulling his string, and he had no intention of negotiating whatsoever. And this is when June goes to court and tries to get her son back. And so essentially, what happens then is Evan realizes, if he gives Jordi back to June, the whole the whole gig is up, right? Because Jordy is not going to cooperate once he goes back to June. So he basically then takes Jordy back to that psychologist that he'd gone to with a hypothetical a few weeks earlier, and has Jordy report to him that he was molested, and then, and then the psychologist reports it to the Department of Children and Family Services, and then the next day, it's like wildfire all over the global media that Michael Jackson molested this child. And so what happens next is really important to understand. So the police get involved and they start criminally investigating Michael. But what Evan does is he simultaneously follows files a civil lawsuit against Michael, which created two court cases simultaneously for the same matter, but one court case has absolutely nothing to do with the other so the you know, the criminal, obviously, you could go to prison if you're convicted. The civil is over money, so Michael's lawyers are furious, because they're like, you can't have two simultaneous cases at the same time. You know, you have to allow the criminal case to complete. You have to allow the police to complete their investigation before you can allow any lawsuit to continue, because, event, essentially, they didn't want to have Michael get into a civil case and give a civil deposition under oath, because that would be like making the defense go before the prosecution, like typically in a case, the prosecution is supposed to go first and then the defense. But if you force Michael to get into the civil case and start giving civil depositions under oath. Then you can find out everywhere he was, when he was there, what he was doing, and then you can craft your criminal case around it. So if he says, I was here and here, between these dates and these hours, you can say, well, he actually molested him at that time, not this time. And so his lawyers are like, you can't make him testify under oath. You know, the prosecution has to go first, the criminal case has to go first. And they went to the judge four times saying, you have to delay the civil case until the police investigation is complete. But Chandler's lawyers basically asked for an expedited civil trial within 120 days. And their argument was, Jordy is going to forget the police investigation might take a long time. We want to expedite the civil trial. So the judge agreed to expedite the civil trial. And then what happened next is the police, they interviewed all these witnesses. They raided Michael's home. They couldn't find anything, absolutely nothing, not a single corroborating witness, nothing. So they ordered a body search of Michael, and essentially, they wanted to, you know, examine his private parts and whatnot, and they wanted to see if it matched the description that Jordy gave. And the reason that jordy's lawyer had Jordy give a description is because Michael has vitiligo. So the lawyer's like, well, he can just guess where the blotches are on his skin. Because even if he guesses wrong, vitiligo changes constantly. The blotches constantly move around. So you know, at best, he guesses right. At worst, you know we have an explanation, but they messed up, because Jordy said that Michael was circumcised, but Michael was not circumcised, so the description did not match the police. And it's not only because of that that we know we did not match. We also know it did not match because number one, Michael wasn't arrested. If it had been a match, he would have been arrested. And then number two, this the civil attorneys, Chandler's civil attorneys asked that the photos be barred from the civil trial. So obviously, if there had been a match, they wouldn't be asking for the photos to be barred from the civil trial. And they also, later, at a grand jury, asked Michael's mother if her son had surgery on his genitalia, which there'd be no reason to ask that question, you know if jordy's description had matched. So all this is going on, the criminal investigation is going on, and Michael's lawyers can't get the civil case delayed, so on the morning of the civil deposition, which was in January 94 now they settled the case because they didn't want him to be civilly deposed before the criminal case was complete. And it's not clear who paid the settlement. I believe Michael's insurance company paid it. A representative for a representative from Transamerica said they offered to pay the settlement. But I'm not 100% clear, because it's not clearly documented, who paid the settlement, but I believe Transamerica paid it.

And so essentially, that settled the civil case, but the criminal continued. And so then it later that spring, they convened two grand juries, one in Los Angeles and one in Santa Barbara, and both grand juries refused to indict Michael Jackson, you know, and they say a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich, but there was so little evidence that two grand juries refused to indict him. And then what happened after that? Then is Jordy then requested legal emancipation from his parents he didn't want. Anything to do with either of his parents. And we don't know definitively what the reason that he requested legal emancipation was, but based on comments from his friends, it was because he don't want anything to do with his parents for the whole mess they put him through and the ordeal, you know, basically forcing him to participate in this thing, he didn't want anything to do with either of his parents and his father. Father, actually, he ended up getting a restraining order later against his father when his father tried to beat him up, physically beat him up. So there's just like a whole sordid history there, but that's kind of the, you know, at a high level, what happened in 1993 and that's very different from the perception given by the media, which is that Michael paid his way out of prison, but that's very different from the reality of what actually happened. 

S: Yeah, I never knew these things until I picked up your book, the things that you're describing I never knew. I remember at that time the rumor mill was very much like, well, where there's smoke, there's fire, and you know, the media has been calling him Wacko Jacko since the 1980s and there were all of these just off the wall koo-koo rumors about him. Some of them were so preposterous, it's not even it's almost like, how do you even logically put it into words, like the whole thing about him supposedly wanting to buy the bones of the elephant man. I mean, that's so that's so absurd. I mean, we can laugh about it now, but the in, in listening to you recount this story, think about the trauma, right? Because you've got Michael Jackson's trauma. He grows up in the spotlight. He has awkward adolescents on full display and people judging him. He has health problems that are on full display and people judging him. Now he has to go through a a body search. I cannot imagine, for me, thinking about my own introversion, being a private person, nudity is for paramours only, and that with tremendous amounts of discretion. I can't imagine having to strip down in front of other people and have them probe my genitalia. So there's one part of the trauma. But then you also have this child, this child who is involved in all of this that's really being held at the mercy of a parent who, as you said, sounds like a jealous boyfriend. Yeah, no, I think both Michael and Jordi, you know, I view them both as victims of that whole saga. And it's just, it's really sad, it's really horrifying, I think, for both of them to have gone through that. And it's just, it really just shows you know how narcissistic Evan was, and how you know how greedy he was? Yeah, and then years later, Michael is in that odd and it was odd. We all, we all sat around and watched it because it was big TV, the odd Martin Bashir interview, and then he's accused of molesting this Gavin Arvizo, and it sounds, to me, in reading your book and looking at the evidence that you present, it sounds like they, too, had a specific agenda that they were pushing. 

M: Yeah, that whole situation is like, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be comedic. I don't know how else to describe it. It's just, you know, like Michael, I guess for starters, Michael was trying to repair his image, because his image by early 2000s was quite a bit of a mess. A lot of it was media slander, you know. But there was also, you know, the plastic surgery and pain painkiller medications at times and things like that. So his image was just a mess, and he wanted to do something to repair his image, so he agreed to do this documentary, which he thought was going to be a positive documentary, but it turned into a complete manipulative hit piece. And in that documentary, there's this boy, Gavin Arvizo and he's holding the boy's hand, and the boy says, So Gavin was someone who had cancer, and he actually met Michael, because he was in the same dance class as Michael's hairstylist son. And they begged the hairstylist to meet Michael, and she introduced them to Michael, and they came up to Neverland. And one thing to know about Neverland, it's like 3000 acres has multiple guest cottages. There's always, constantly visitors at Neverland. Michael at, like so many people, stay at Neverland. And so this family came up to visit Neverland, and one night, you know, as they the boy recalled in the documentary, they were begging Michael, can we stay in your him and his brother, can we stay in your room? Can we stay in your room? And Michael was really uneasy about it. But this kid had cancer, and, you know, Michael has a soft heart. He kind of felt bad telling them no, so he was like, Okay, you can stay in the room, and his Michael's kids stayed there, and Michael's assistant, Frank stayed there, and the two boys, Michael gave the two boys his bed, and everyone else slept on the floor. And this is sort of clear from the documentary, but the media. Cut it up into snippets, and basically said, Oh, this kid stayed in Michael Jackson's bed. And, you know, they shared a bed together, and even though they didn't, and so basically, rumors started spreading like wildfire that Michael was molesting this child. So the police start investigating him for molesting this child. The Department of Children and Family Services start investigating him for molesting this child. The media is hounding this family. So this family asked Michael, can we spend a few weeks at Neverland, which is like an isolated 3000 acres out in the wilderness, until this media hoopla dies down, because they're at our front door, they're hounding us. And Michael's like, Yeah, that's fine. And so what happens then is, everything goes fine for a while, and they eventually leave the property. This was early February, 2003 they eventually leave the property early March, 2003 and based on Michael staff that testified during the trial, Michael was kind of getting sick at that sick of them because they were starting to act entitled, you know, to Michael's wealth and property and whatnot. And so eventually they, laughter, kind of got kicked off the property. And so they then went to the same civil attorney that Chandler used in 1993 and they wanted to file a molestation lawsuit against Michael. But what happened is, after the 1993 case, because we kind of went over how unfair it was that the civil came before the the criminal. The California law changed as a direct result of that case. So now, if you had a civil and the criminal for the same matter, the civil could be staged so that the criminal could go first. So the lawyer told them, because of the change in the law, they can't pursue a civil lawsuit until they go through a criminal investigation first, and that's the only way they'll be able to pursue a civil case. And so they ended up going through the criminal route. And so by the end of 2003 the police indicted Michael, and what's really important to know is they claimed an indictment that Gavin remembered Michael molesting him five times between, I think it was the dates of February 7 and march 10, 2003 something like that. But then, as they kept investigating the case, they ran into a lot of problems. So the first problem they ran into is so Michael recorded this rebuttal documentary to the Bashir hit piece, and our visas recorded a segment. They didn't appear on the aired version, but they recorded a segment for the rebuttal documentary on February 20, and in that so the police found that videotape, and in the videotape, they're praising Michael, they're making fun of the insinuations beshear made in his documentary, and there's a lot of chit chat in between official filming, so it's obvious this isn't scripted. And so the police are like crap. What are we going to do with this? Because this boy claimed he began being molested on February 7, and this is February 20, and so they decided to come up with a conspiracy to kidnap and imprison this family charge against Michael. So they charged him with kidnapping this family and forcing them to make this videotape to say he wasn't molested. But then they found an ironclad alibi that Michael had for the early dates of February, so they're like crap. So then they ended up moving out the molestation days to start after February 20, and then they they said, then the boy changed the story and said, I wasn't molested five times. I was actually molested just twice, which I think they changed it from five times to two times because of the shortened time frame. So you have to look at this timeline. The documentary airs in early February. Then they accused Michael, and then police start investigating Michael. Department of Children and Family Services started family services started investigating Michael. Michael allegedly kidnaps and imprisons this family while he's being investigated for molesting this child, and then he forces this family to tape a video praising him. And then, after all of that, he decides to start, for the very, very first time, molesting this child. So what criminal starts molesting someone they're already under investigation for molesting like you'd literally need to be the dumbest criminal in human history to do that. But that's the timeline they went to court with, you know? So you have all these changing stories, you have these changing dates. You have the amount of molestations changing. So by the time they get to court, it's a totally different story than the one they indicted him under. And then when they got to court, all these credibility issues about their visas started coming out, like they'd been hitting up various celebrities like Kobe Bryant and George Lopez. You know, Gavin left his wallet at George Lopez's home, and then his father called George Lopez the next day and said, My son left his wallet there. Can I pick it up? And when he went to pick it up, he said to George Lopez, you know, my son had $300 in this wallet. What did you do with his $300 and George Lopez has basically called him an extortionist to his face. You know, he's like, I didn't even know your son left his wallet. Here, let alone took money out of it, right? You know, they, they had previously sued JC Penney for 150 grand for molestation, because Gavin had got picked up for shoplifting, and then Janet, his mother, sued JCPenney for sexually molesting her for complaining about them picking up her son, and JCPenney ended up settling that for 150 grand, because they didn't want anything to do with this family. They just wanted them to go away. And I think that's where they were hoping with Michael, because it worked with JC Penney, I think they were hoping, let's just file a lawsuit. Let's he'll settle, give us some money and move on. But because the laws in California change, that just wasn't going to happen. It was going to have to go through a criminal case first, and at this point, they were really bitter at Michael for basically kicking them off as property, for not wanting anything to do with them anymore. And they were sort of reminded me of Evan Chandler just feeling jaded that Michael didn't want to give them his attention and time. So they also kind of came off as jealous boyfriends, or jealous ex boyfriends, in a way. And so Michael ended up being acquitted. You know, one juror stated, you know, at times, some of the testimony was so absurd that she wanted to break out laughing. And that's kind of what I meant, is, if it wasn't so tragic, it would be comedic, because it really was that absurd. That case even more absurd than 1993 I think, but he was acquitted at the end of it, but I think it was just such a traumatic, traumatic ordeal for him, because the press, basically, for two years, reported on it as if it were true, as if there was overwhelming evidence to support these allegations, as if they were credible, when in reality, they kept changing and they made no sense at all. 

S: They absolutely did report on both of these instances as though they were fact, instead of innocent until proven guilty. Let's give due process to this person. I remember it was very much presented in the media as this person is already guilty. This person is clearly a demented sex pervert. In terms of the court of public opinion, the media absolutely went after him tooth and nail. 

M: Oh, it was brutal. I remember how brutal it was, and back then I didn't know what was going on. It wasn't until after his death that I researched all this stuff like I never really thought he was guilty, because he just seemed like such a pure and innocent soul to me. And so I was always really skeptical of those allegations, but I didn't know any of the details, you know, because I the only information I was getting was from the mainstream press, which was so one sided, I didn't know for 100% and then when I went to study it after his death, I was like, my god, like I felt guilty just thinking that there was even a possibility that it could be true, because obviously I didn't know for 100% and I was just like, you know, that's what kind of why I felt I had to write the book, because it was just like this, and people need to know and understand this information, this man deserves to be exonerated.

S: Yes, and near the 10 year anniversary of Michael's death, HBO released that leaving Neverland, we could say so called documentary, and I remember the firestorm of publicity around that program and how prominent celebrities were ordering us to cancel Michael Jackson once and for all. And I thought about James D Eugenio, because he has documented the same phenomenon happening to JFK. He published an essay in probe magazine years ago called the posthumous assassination of John F Kennedy. Highly, highly recommend it. It is so thoroughly documented. I mean, he just goes point by point through all of these accusers that have trotted out sex stories, nasty sex stories about JFK, and debunks them, one right after the other. But another thing that he points out is that nearing a major death anniversary, a major anniversary of JFK, is murder in Dallas, somebody will trot out a new scandal to just remind us, Hey everybody, JFK is a dirt bag. There's no reason to feel sad that he got murdered. We didn't lose anything. And I'm wondering, like, what's going on in this way with Michael Jackson? Because that, that hit piece comes out at the 10 year anniversary, and I'm like, why is Michael Jackson still under attack. What are your thoughts on that? 

M: Yeah, I think it. I definitely don't think it's a coincidence that it came out on the 10 year anniversary. Because usually on the 10 year anniversary of someone's passing, you celebrate their life, their music, their art. But instead of, you know, they tried to cancel Michael Jackson completely, they tried to censor his music off the radio. And I think it has to be the power of music is the reason why? Because his music is very unifying, is very uplifting. It calls out power quite a bit, a lot more, I think, than people realize, particularly on his history album. You know, even wrote a song about the JFK assassination on that album. But. Physical and character assassination of JFK. And so he just had a lot of really powerful music that I think inspires people, unites people, makes them think, questions power, and they'd rather people not listen to that kind of music. And so I think it was an opportunity, rather than to highlight that music, to trash him instead, yeah, which is terrible, because then it's like this poor person can't even rest in peace. As you said, you wanted to write the book and push toward exoneration, but instead, still, yet we're getting these smear campaigns so that this man cannot rest in peace. Yeah, no, it's horrible. I remember what and when that 2019 documentary came out, I had already studied the 1993 in 2005 and then second it came out, I was like, This cannot be happening again, you know? And I and those, the two people in the 2019 documentary, they had actually sued Michael from old station already. So there's a lawsuit is still going through the courts, so I already knew a lot about their case, so I knew what BS this, these allegations were, but none of that is mentioned in the documentary. I mean, this is really like propagandistic documentary with, you know, music and lighting and you know how those pieces go. But it was just, I just thought, my God, like, How can this be promoted when all of this has been debunked for years, you know? And just to give, I guess, a brief overview of what happened there. So the main accuser wade in that documentary. He had been praising Michael for many years, when Michael died in 2009 he offered to do all these tribute shows for Michael, and then he offered to choreograph the Michael Jackson Cirque du Soleil show in Vegas, which is still going on in Vegas, and even told the press that he got hired for it and all these things, but the estate didn't hire him. They hired someone else. And Wade was a choreographer whose career at that point was pretty much dried up, and so because his career opportunities were far and few in between. But by that point, and because the estate refused to hire him for these tribute shows, he came out with these allegations against Michael, and basically, you know, sued the estate to and then those allegations came out, like, I think, a week or two before the Cirque du Soleil show premiered. So that questioning is really suspect. And then the second guy that joined the allegations, his family got sued her, his family business got sued for like, 850 grand. And then a week or two later, he sees Wade on TV, and he's like, Oh, I was molested by Michael Jackson, too. And the thing is, these two guys had to claim that they didn't know their whole lives that they were molested by Michael Jackson. We only realized it later in life, because that's how they could meet the statute of limitations for a lawsuit, because if they had known the whole time that they were molested, they couldn't sue Michael Jackson and their stories in the documentary are just so easily discredited that it's insane. Probably the easiest one to explain is James safechuck In the documentary goes into detail about how he was molested every day at the Neverland train station during the late 1980s during the honeymoon phase of his and Michael's romantic relationship, which he swore under oath, ended in 1992 under penalty of perjury, but that train station was not built until 1994 so, you know, they say like no one will ever know the truth except for the two people in the room? Well, we know the truth because the room didn't exist. It probably didn't exist, you know? So, I mean, those are the kind of issues with their allegations. And it's just the whole thing is just so absurd. And it was, it was brutal watching that documentary, because the press wasn't going into any of the details wasn't going over into any of the background information wasn't going into the sorted history, the changing stories. It was just these two men made an accusation, let's stop playing Michael Jackson's music on the radio. And that was, you know, basically the gist of that whole experience. But luckily, a lot of fans went online and, you know, aggressively debunked those allegations, so that anybody who really wanted to find out the truth could go online and, you know, find out you know what actually happened behind that documentary. 

S: Yes, and I'm, I'm glad for that. There's another Michael quote that I highlighted in your book, where he says, people don't look at themselves honestly. They don't look at themselves and point the finger at themselves. It's always the other guy's fault. In quote, and I put in my notes, like what I'm highlighting this and furiously typing at the Kindle, I put in my notes, this reminds me of Hammarskjöld’s relentless quest to know himself and to improve any character traits that he found lacking. So the final question that I want to ask you tonight is, do you think a way to preserve Michael's memory and positive way is to utilize that kind of self reflection? 

M: Yeah, I think so. Like, I just think that came from the Man in the Mirror song, and I think, you know, he's absolutely right. We have to always and JFK really said the same thing in his peace speech. I mean, that's exactly what JFK said in his peace speech. Is if you want peace, you have to start by looking inward, not outward. You can't just blame the other guy. You have to look at your own contributions to conflict, to war, to instability. And so I think it's just one of the any and Michael actually said that in his autobiography. He said the philosophy of man in the mirror was jfk's philosophy. Michael himself wrote that and stated that. And so I think you really have to if you want to make the world a better place. You have to do it yourself, and you have to see what you're doing to prevent that from happening and what you can do to make that happen. 

S: Yeah, that's really well said. I kind of have like, chill bumps right now. 

M: There's a lot of connection between Michael and JFK. A funny thing is, like when I was writing my JFK book, I wasn't making the connection to Michael, you know, because I was just focused on that book. But then when I wrote my Michael book, I remembered like the influence that or the way that Michael introduced me to JFK, because he referenced him in his autobiography and man in the mirror. He wrote a song about the character assassination of JFK. And I must have listened to that song at least a million times when I was young, so I think he seeped into my subconscious the idea that JFK was character assassinated. So by the time I wrote my book, I kind of already had that impression, and I don't think I made that connection. That part of the reason I had that impression was because I listened to Michael sing it over and over and over and over. But when I wrote, wrote my Michael book, I was like, wow, there's, like, really, you know, a connection there. 

S: There is, and it's amazing to me. This is something else that I think that that JFK was very savvy about this connection that art has to the human race because, and it doesn't necessarily have to be music, it can also be painting, it can be sculpture, it can be a stained glass window, but that's something that unifies people rather than dividing them. And I'm thinking also this idea, kind of this Jungian idea of the Spiritus Mundi, that there's this over connecting consciousness that we can plug into at any point in time. So you're having this experience of writing about JFK and then seeing these connections to Michael Jackson and making a book about him down the road. And it's interesting, because when you and I were talking the first time around, you said that you wanted to go back to source material and really get give JFK a space to speak. And I completely, 100% I didn't say anything at the time, but I totally, like, erupted in goosebumps all over my body because I'm like, holy cannolis. I'm out here trying to do the same thing with my hammer. Should research. And it was just one of those moments where I'm like, I don't know what kind of spirit is, Mundi consciousness we're on right now, but we are on one. Yeah, no, definitely. It's just I don't know. 

M: I opened my book with a quote from JFK, saying, you know, art is political in the most profound sense. And I think people don't realize how political it is. And the reason I opened my book with that quote was I really wanted people to think about why Michael was targeted so much. Yes, you know, it wasn't just because they wanted to sell newspapers. It was much deeper and more profound than that. 

S: You have to silence the idea. If you silence the man, that's one thing that's sort of taking an immediate threat or an immediate risk out of the equation, but then you have to go back and silence that man's ideas, otherwise they might take hold. 

M: Yes, no, absolutely. And I think that's why both JFK and Michael have continued to be character assassinated even after their deaths. 

S: Yes, well, I am so appreciative not only of your time tonight, but of all the research that you've done, the research that you've done around JFK and what the world lost the day that he died, and now the research around Michael Jackson and just debunking the complete nonsense, the weird rumors, the spurious accusations, and bringing to light Michael's music and some of the stories behind the music, the message that he wanted to promote, of unity, healing the world, putting racism to. Side. It's, it's very powerful stuff. So thank you, not only for taking the time out of your schedule to join me again and to talk to my listeners, but also for your impeccable research on these topics. 

M: And thank you for having me back on it was, it was really fun. 

S: Yay. So if somebody has not checked out, Michael Jackson, the man the music and the controversy, where is a good place for them to go to obtain a copy? 

M: They can get it on Amazon or any other popular bookstore, like Barnes and Noble thrift books. 

S: Awesome. Well, I highly encourage anybody, whether you're a Gen Xer like me, and this is the soundtrack of your childhood, or whether you've just heard about it in passing and always wondered, well, what else is going on with this story that I don't know? I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of Monika's Michael Jackson book, because it is thoroughly documented and it is an absolute game changer and eye opener. So thank you for joining me, and thank you for taking the time to do this research and to debunk these myths around Michael.

M: And thank you for having me on.

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